Tag: Liberal Party of Canada

An Edmonton Riverbend by-election could have told us a lot about Alberta politics today

Post author By Dave Cournoyer
Post date April 11, 2026

Fifty days ago Edmonton Riverbend MP Matt Jeneroux crossed the floor from the Conservatives to the Liberals. Jeneroux’s defection wasn’t unexpected, it had been rumoured for months, but a late 2025 statement that he planned to resign in 2026 led many people to believe there would be a by-election in Edmonton Riverbend.

Edmontonians won’t get the chance to vote in a federal by-election this spring, but had Jeneroux resigned we would have had an opportunity to test the long list of recent polls that show support for Carney’s Liberals increasing in Alberta. It wouldn’t have been much a test in most Alberta ridings, as Pierre Poilievre’s Battle River-Crowfoot by-election win demonstrated, but Riverbend is a different matter.

Nenshi wants to avoid Brexit mistakes in fight against Alberta separatists

Post author By Dave Cournoyer
Post date April 11, 2026

Alberta NDP leader Naheed Nenshi launched the For Alberta For Canada campaign (source: Naheed Nenshi / YouTube)

“Our country is not perfect, but it’s the best place in the world, and Albertans are ready to fight for Canada,” Alberta NDP leader Naheed Nenshi said as he launched his party’s For Alberta For Canada campaign in anticipation of an expected referendum on Alberta’s separation from Canada.

“Every day, Albertans ask me one simple question about separatism: ‘what can I do?’ This new campaign is an answer to that—giving everyday people the tools and the power they need to stand up for our country.

They know that if Alberta separates, we’ll lose so much. Even the threat of a referendum is already damaging our economy and creating chaos and uncertainty. Today we are giving Albertans the tools to take action and be ready for this fall.”

The NDP campaign will kick off with a province-wide door-knocking day of action on April 25, which Nenshi says aims to attract pro-Canadian Albertans beyond NDP voters.

“We’re not repeating the mistake of the people who thought Brexit would never pass. We’re getting out there now,” Nenshi told reporters. “We’re not sleepwalking into this.”

Kelly Hopper challenges Elan Harper for federal Conservative nomination in Calgary Confederation

Post author By Dave Cournoyer
Post date March 8, 2026

Kelly Hopper is challenging Elan Harper for the federal Conservative Party nomination in Calgary Confederation.

Hopper ran for the Conservative nomination in the neighbouring Calgary Signal Hill in 2024 and her website says former UCP MLA and 2025 candidate Jeremy Nixon asked her to enter this race.

Nixon was the UCP MLA for Calgary-Klein from 2019 to 2023, and was defeated in Calgary Confederation by Liberal Corey Hogan in the 2025 federal election.

Top 10 Daveberta columns of 2025

Post author By Dave Cournoyer
Post date December 29, 2025

Alberta’s Legislature Building through the view of a broken glass panel in summer 2025 (credit: Dave Cournoyer)

It has been a big year in Alberta politics and a big year for Daveberta. Canada had a federal election, there was no shortage of news and (frequently troubling) political maneuvering in Alberta, Calgary and Edmonton elected new mayors, and I marked 20 years since launching my original blog and starting to write about Alberta politics online.

I’m taking it easy this week to enjoy the Christmas break with my family and friends but I did take a few moments to look at some of the top columns I published this year and wanted to share that list with you today.

Using Substack’s metrics, which combine traffic, likes and subscriptions generated, here are the top 10 columns I published in 2025.

Read all about it on the Daveberta Substack

Alberta Politics

Not even close. Pierre Poilievre wins a landslide victory in Battle River-Crowfoot

Post author By Dave Cournoyer
Post date August 19, 2025

Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre posing with the Reynolds Raiders horse-mounted outlaw gang in Big Valley, which is part of the Alberta Prairie Railway tour (source: Pierre Poilievre / Instagram)

Independent Bonnie Critchley finishes a distant but respectable second

As was widely expected, Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre had no problem winning yesterday’s federal by-election in the Conservative stronghold of Battle River—Crowfoot. Poilievre’s commanding lead was clear the moment the first poll was reported shortly after 8:30 p.m., which showed the party leader with 437 votes compared to a combined 49 votes for all the other candidates in the race.

After a long night of counting the write-in ballots, Elections Canada reported that Poilievre was elected with 40,548 votes — 80.4 percent of the total votes cast in the by-election. Poilievre’s landslide win is fell just short of the 82.8 percent earned by former and future MP Damien Kurek just a few months ago, but shows that Conservative Party support remains solid in this sprawling rural Alberta riding.

What’s at stake in the Battle River-Crowfoot by-election?

Post author By Dave Cournoyer
Post date August 15, 2025

Conservative Party candidate Pierre Poilievre in Carbon, Alberta (source: Pierre Poilievre / Facebook)

Pierre Poilievre is going to win. The only real question is: by how much?

Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre will return to the House of Commons after he wins the federal by-election happening in the sprawling rural riding of Battle River-Crowfoot on Monday, August 18.

The by-election marking Poilievre’s return to Ottawa also marks a return to Alberta after he left his hometown of Calgary more than 20 years ago to work as a political staffer in Ottawa and run in a riding just outside the capital city. After spending 21 years as an Ottawa-area MP, Poilievre was defeated by Liberal Bruce Fanjoy in Carleton on April 28, which many believe was a result of his strong support of the anti-vaccine trucker convoy that harassed residents of the capital city in January and February 2022.

🇨🇦 Alberta ridings I’m watching on federal election night in Canada

Post author By Dave Cournoyer
Post date April 28, 2025

It’s Election Day so don’t forget to vote!

It’s Election Day in Canada and the polls are open from 7:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. in Alberta. If you aren’t one of the 815,131 Albertans who voted in the Advance Polls, then be sure to find your voting station and cast a ballot today.

Alberta Politics

Vote-splitting in Edmonton Griesbach

Post author By Dave Cournoyer
Post date April 22, 2025

A campaign mailer from NDP candidate Blake Desjarlais in Edmonton Griesbach (source: Dave Cournoyer)

The Liberal surge in the national polls, which shows the Liberals jumping up to around 30 percent support in Alberta in some polls (the party’s highest levels of support in this province in almost sixty years), has led to a lot of discussion in this campaign about vote-splitting.

“Stop the Split!” was the key message of a recent pamphlet that Blake Desjarlais’ campaign mailed to voters in the riding. The NDP campaign’s message is “Only Blake Desjarlais can defeat Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives in Edmonton Griesbach.” The pamphlet doesn’t mention Kerry Diotte, which is interesting, and points out that in the last election the NDP earned 40 percent of the vote, the Conservatives won 37 percent and the Liberals finished third with 13 percent in the riding.

Discussions about vote-splitting in Edmonton, which usually revolve around defeating Conservative candidates, almost always devolve into cringeworthy arguments between Liberal and NDP partisans – which is why I try to avoid them.

Daveberta readers are smart people and it’s not my place to tell you how to vote. The furthest I’ll wade into the vote-splitting debate in my riding today is to say that it’s true that the Liberals are doing very well in the national polls and it’s also true that Desjarlais’ campaign is the better organized of the two main non-Conservative candidates in Edmonton Griesbach.

Read the rest on the Daveberta Substack

Tags Alberta Politics Substack, Blake Desjarlais, Canada Election 2025, Conservative Party of Canada, Daveberta Substack, Edmonton-Griesbach, Jagmeet Singh, Kerry Diotte, Liberal Party of Canada, Mark Carney, New Democratic Party of Canada, Patrick Lennox, Pierre Poilievre, Vote-splitting in Edmonton

Alberta Politics

Who’s going to win in Edmonton Griesbach?

Post author By Dave Cournoyer
Post date April 21, 2025

Edmonton Griesbach NDP candidate Blake Desjarlais snaps a selfie with former Alberta premier Rachel Notley, and NDP MLAs Janis Irwin and Brooks Arcand-Paul (source: Blake Desjarlais / Instagram)

NDP MP Blake Desjarlais faces former Conservative MP Kerry Diotte and Mark Carney’s red wave

As Canada’s federal election enters its final week, I am taking a closer look at the race in the Edmonton Griesbach riding. It’s one of a surprisingly large handful of Alberta ridings that are considered competitive in this election and it also happens to be the riding I live and vote in.

The east central/north side Edmonton riding was where the NDP picked up their second seat in Alberta in the 2021 federal election when New Democrat Blake Desjarlais defeated two-term Conservative MP Kerry Diotte. This year’s election is a rematch between the two candidates but, despite traditionally being a blue-orange race, the Liberal Party’s surge could put that party’s candidate in the mix.

Liberals tap Corey Hogan to run against Jeremy Nixon in Calgary Confederation

Post author By Dave Cournoyer
Post date April 4, 2025

Liberals drop former NDP MLA Rod Loyola in Edmonton Gateway

Canada’s federal election is in full-swing and today’s Daveberta newsletter includes a quick update about candidate nominations in Alberta. I will be back early next week with a regular column and more analysis from Alberta in the federal election.

As of this morning, the Conservative Party, the New Democratic Party, and the Green Party are the only parties with candidates in all 37 ridings in Alberta. The Liberal Party briefly had a full slate but are down one after their candidate in Edmonton Gateway was removed yesterday (more about that below).

The deadline for parties to nominate candidates or for Independent candidates to put their names forward is Monday, April 7 at 2:00 p.m.

Alberta Politics

Danielle Smith threatens a national unity crisis if Canadians re-elect Mark Carney’s Liberals

Post author By Dave Cournoyer
Post date March 31, 2025

Liberal Party leader Mark Carney on the campaign trail (source: Mark Carney / Facebook)

UCP MLA writes that Canada is broken and Team Canada is a “fake team”

Mark Carney has only been Prime Minister of Canada for 17 days but last week he may have made one of the most consequential statements by a Canadian political leader in recent memory.

“The old relationship we had with the United States based on deepening integration of our economies and tight security and military cooperation is over,” Carney said in response to American President Donald Trump’s almost daily threats against Canada.

Trump backed down on his threats last week to level 25 percent tariffs against the Canadian automobile manufacturing industry, probably temporarily, after Carney announced retaliatory tariffs, but this week could feature Trump’s next big intervention in a federal election campaign where he has become the biggest villain. April 2 is what the Trump is calling “Liberation Day.” It’s the day he says he plans to level more huge tariffs on products being imported into the US.

Read the rest on the Daveberta Substack

Tags Adriana LaGrange, Alberta Federal Candidate Nomination Update, Alberta NDP, Alberta Separatism, Alberta Sovereignty Act, Alberta Sovereignty within a United Canada Act, Ben Shapiro, Calgary-Confederation, Calgary-East, Canada Election 2025, Chris Brown, Chris Spearman, Conservative Party of Canada, Danielle Smith, Derek Chauvin, Devin Dreeshen, Donald Trump, Donald Trump Tariff, Edmonton Centre, Edmonton Manning, Eleanor Olszewski, Fair Deal Panel, Free Alberta Strategy, George Floyd, Gina Rinehart, Jagmeet Singh, Jared Wesley, Jason Stephan, Lesley Thompson, Liberal Party of Canada, Liberation Day, Mark Carney, Naheed Nenshi, Nathan Svoboda, PragerU, Priti Obhrai-Martin, Rachael Thomas, Red Deer-South, Rob Anderson, Sayid Ahmed, Searle Turton, Shannon Phillips, Thomas Keeper, Trisha Estabrooks, United Conservative Party, Western Alienation

Alberta Politics

NDP MLA Rod Loyola challenging Conservative MP Tim Uppal in Edmonton Gateway

Post author By Dave Cournoyer
Post date March 27, 2025

Rod Loyola was the NDP MLA for Edmonton-Ellerslie until stepping down this week (photo source: Rod Loyola / Facebook)

Rod Loyola has resigned as the Alberta NDP MLA for Edmonton-Ellerslie and is running as the Liberal Party candidate in the new Edmonton Gateway riding in the federal election. Loyola represented his south Edmonton provincial riding from 2015 until he stepped down earlier this week to pursue the federal Liberal nomination.

Read all about it on the Daveberta Substack

Tags Alberta Federal Candidate Nomination Update, Alberta NDP, Alberta Politics Substack, Alberta Prosperity Project, Ashley Fearnall, Ben Shapiro, Bharat Agnihotri, Blair-Marie Coles, Calgary-Centre, Calgary-Midnapore, Camrose, Canada Election 2025, Commonwealth of Alberta Delegation to Washington, Conservative Party of Canada, Danielle Smith, Daveberta Substack, Debbie Carlson, Dennis Modry, Donald Trump, Edmonton Centre, Edmonton Gateway, Edmonton Manning, Edmonton Northwest, Edmonton-Ellerslie, Edmonton-Ellerslie by-election, Edmonton-Strathcona, Edmonton-Strathcona by-election, Eleanor Olszewski, Jackie Lovely, Jason Markusoff, Jeffrey Rath, Kathleen Petty, LaVar Payne, Liberal Party of Canada, Lindsay Luhnau, Lindsey Machona, Logan Hooley, Lori Williams, Mark Carney, Miles Berry, Mitch Sylvestre, Naheed Nenshi, Naresh Bhardwaj, Parkland, Pierre Poilievre, Ponoka-Didsbury, PragerU, Rachel Notley, Rahim Jaffer, Randy Boissonnault, Ranjit Bath, Rob Anders, Rod Loyola, Ron Thiering, Sunjiv Raval, Tim Uppal, United Conservative Party

Alberta Politics

Danielle Smith’s MAGA charm offensive could haunt the Conservatives

Post author By Dave Cournoyer
Post date March 24, 2025

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith speaks at the United Conservative Party’s Leader’s Dinner in Edmonton in March 2025 (source: Danielle Smith / Facebook)

When Alberta Premier Danielle Smith demanded Carney call a federal election after he was sworn-in as Prime Minister ten days ago, she probably didn’t expect that a two week old interview with an American alt-right news website would be making headlines on the first day of the campaign.

In a March 8 interview with the pro-Trump Breitbart website, Smith said she asked the Trump administration to pause their economic attacks on Canada until after the federal election because they might hurt Pierre Poilievre’s chances of defeating the Liberals.

Read it all on the Daveberta Substack

Alberta Politics

What to make of Mark Carney’s meeting with Danielle Smith

Post author By Dave Cournoyer
Post date March 21, 2025

Premier Danielle Smith speaks to supporters at the United Conservative Party Leader’s Dinner fundraiser in Edmonton on March 19, 2025 (source: Danielle Smith / Facebook)

Liberal PM expected to call federal election on Sunday for an April 28 or May 5 vote

Prime Minster Mark Carney was in Edmonton yesterday for his first visit since winning the Liberal Party leadership and becoming leader of the government. Carney met with Premier Danielle Smith, who re-endorsed Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre the night before at a sold out Leader’s Dinner fundraiser in the capital city.

The Prime Minister and Premier did not make themselves available to speak with the media after the meeting and there were no photos taken of the two politicians together, which is probably an indication of how well we can expect the meeting went (Smith’s office later posted a photo of her meeting with Ambassador of Austria Andreas Rendl, which also gives us an idea of where the Prime Minister fits in her pecking order).

Two Alberta boys go to Ottawa

Post author By Dave Cournoyer
Post date March 17, 2025

Prime Minister Mark Carney (source: Mark Carney / Facebook)

Mark Carney and Pierre Poilievre grew up in Alberta. That’s a big deal for our province.

The political landscape in Canada has totally shifted under the weight of American President Donald Trump’s threats to impose harsh tariffs on Canadian goods and annex Canada as the 51st State.

Trump’s daily rambling threats against his country’s northern neighbours, mixed with the departure of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau from Canadian politics, has erased the huge lead in the polls that Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre had been riding for the past year.

The swearing-in of former Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney as Canada’s new Prime Minister appears to have brought the Liberal Party back into the electoral game, for now, but such huge swings in public opinion in such a short time mean it could be impossible to predict what will happen next.

Tags Alberta Federal Candidate Nomination Update, Ben Shapiro, Calgary McKnight, Conservative Party of Canada, Danielle Smith, Donald Trump, Donald Trump Tariff, Edmonton-Centre, George Chahal, Justin Trudeau, Liberal Party of Canada, Mark Carney, Peter Guthrie, Pierre Poilievre, Randy Boissonnault, Scott Sinclair, United Conservative Party